What is Happening?

What on Earth is happening? The explosion of housing prices in Vancouver and Victoria is crazy, but the same thing is happening in many cities around the world, not just the big ones like Toronto, London, Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, New York, San Francisco and Mumbai but also smaller communities like Kelowna, and Nashville, Tennessee. In Australia, in 2014, house prices rose by a whopping 121%.[i]Continue reading Canada’s Housing Crisis: Twenty-Two Solutions→

How do we tackle the climate crisis with the speed and resolution that the climate scientists say is so urgently needed?

How do we make a rapid transition to a 100% renewable energy economy in a positive, nation-building manner, without causing economic mayhem, unemployment and chaos?

It’s complicated. There’s no doubt about it. Our economy is completely enmeshed in fossil fuels. We use fossil fuels to travel, to heat our homes and buildings, to generate electricity, to power our industry, to make plastics and to pave the roads. If fossil fuels were to magically stop working due to a zombie-ray from outer space or an unexpected change in the laws of physics, our economy would grind to an immediate halt. Continue reading Let’s Get Going – Climate Action Together→

by Guy Dauncey

Is It Really True?

Is it really true that if we don’t build more pipelines and allow more exports of coal, oil and gas, that Canada’s economy will be in danger and unemployment will rise?

That’s certainly what we are frequently told, both by the Conservative federal government and by several provincial governments, either directly or by implied assumption.

There is alternative, however. The climate crisis is inescapably real. It threatens everyone’s future, and it is being caused by carbon emissions from the same fossil fuels that our governments want to expand.

Her final part, Big problem, small changes, laid out small changes that could help, such as raising income assistance rates. It’s a big problem, however, so here are some big changes that could contribute to a future in which there is no poverty at all, except the voluntary simplicity of those who want to live with a minimal footprint on the Earth. Continue reading Six big changes could put an end to poverty→

Introduction

The transition from a capitalist to a cooperative economy could be one of the defining achievements of the 21st century.

In history, everything changes. The foundations of capitalism were built by merchants and mercantilists in the 16th and 17th centuries in response to the oppressiveness of feudalism. It developed into full-fledged industrial capitalism in the 18th and 19th centuries, and into financial capitalism at the end of the 20th century, using global free trade, shadow banking and offshore tax havens to overpower and sidestep much government taxation, regulation and control. Continue reading Sixteen Building Blocks of a Green, Entrepreneurial, Cooperative Economy→